Ethnicities and Values in a Changing World

Recent debates about national identity, belonging and community cohesion can appear to suggest that ethnicity is a static entity and that ethnic difference is a source of conflict in itself. Ethnicities and Values in a Changing World presents an alternative account of ethnicity and calls into question models of community cohesion that present ethnicity as the source of antagonisms and differences that must be overcome, suggesting instead that ethnicity is itself multiple and changing and is unlikely to be a basis for articulating shared values.
This volume brings together an international team of leading scholars in the field of ethnic studies in order to examine innovative articulations of ethnicity and challenge the contention that ethnicity is static or that it necessarily represents traditional values and cultures. Asserting that ethnicity is deployed in part as an expression of values and a model of ethical practice, this book examines displays of ethnicity as assertions of identity and statements about way of life, sense of entitlement and manner of connection to others.
Ethnicities and Values in a Changing World draws together debates about the articulation of ethnic identity, the nature of our relation to each other and discussions of everyday ethics, thus engaging with discussions of racism, multiculturalism and community cohesion. As such, it will appeal not only to sociologists, but to anyone working in the fields of cultural studies, race and ethnicity, globalization, migration and anthropology.

Gargi Bahttacharyya lectures in Sociology in the School of Languages and Social Sciences at Aston University, UK